Razorwing flock spam - its amazing

Uhh I think you are talking about the all is dust rule right? That doesn't increase wound rolls but increases the save by one if the attack is damage 1.

Now you might be thinking of the shadowseer's ability to reduce wound rolls by 1. It only works on harlequin infantry though and they are only tough 3.

...

Confusion has been had.

That's a shame. I'd hoped we'd found a way around the bird-spam, it appears we have not.

Unless someone wants to wrap their Ravagers in Skyweavers and keep a Shadowseer inside the bubble.

@Ikol wrote:

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Confusion has been had.

That's a shame.  I'd hoped we'd found a way around the bird-spam, it appears we have not.

Unless someone wants to wrap their Ravagers in Skyweavers and keep a Shadowseer inside the bubble.

"Shield from harm" is infantry only ^^

Oof.

So, TA or other people running birdspam: how many bird flocks do you think is best per unit?

Max units, less chance for Moral, less chance an objective to kill a full unit, and you can Congo line them easier to the Characters if you need too.

I didn't understand that, I'm sorry. Less chance for morale? Doesn't having maximum units make you more likely to have morale casualties?

'Less chance an objective to kill a full unit:' I'm sorry, I don't understand what you are trying to say.

When you say 'congo line' (I assume you mean conga line) you are saying you can multi-charge to wrap around and get a character in the charge, too?

You can keep them close (conga line) them easier to Characters for LD9/Immune to Moral. Yeah Conga, it was a typo.

Also with them being larger, its harder to outright kill them for Points.

Okay, so being near a character makes them less vulnerable to Morale.

But having a large unit in general doesn't do that, right?

So, other than KPs and unit footprint for the Beastmaster Buff, are there any other bennies to fielding huge units of them?

@Jimsolo wrote:

Okay, so being near a character makes them less vulnerable to Morale.

But having a large unit in general doesn't do that, right?

So, other than KPs and unit footprint for the Beastmaster Buff, are there any other bennies to fielding huge units of them?

Alpha striking

'Splain me?

Having the first turn is a matter of having the lowest amount of drops. If you're not fielding vehicles, that means having the lowest amount of units. So having 5 squads of 12 is better than 15 squads of 4, because you will never have the first turn with 15 squads of 4.

Getting first turn is important for DE, and maybe even more so if your entire army is non-shooting, 12" moving birds that just want 1 thing : rush the ennemy ASAP.

Given the low cost of birds, my assumption was that any list which was spamming them would almost certainly be going last.

Against regular, elite armies you're correct. But spamming is far from being rare in this edition. And your bird spam faces another spam, you're be happy to go first ^^

What would be the ratio of beastmasters to bird squads assuming 12 in each squad? What unit do you think supports them the best. sometimes i feel like a Beast master should be an hq instead of an elite.

That's GW's fault for being a dick. They update the beastmaster with cool utility buffs but make him an elite and then give all our characters minor buffs in comparison. The Beastmaster has a better aura than the archon and succubus combined. Like wtf. And then since they opened that barrel of worms, they could have made a dracon as an elite unit that gives reroll wound rolls of a 1 so that it is cool and not a carbon copy of every other character's aura in the game. To be honest, my hq's have been mostly ynnari, haemoncs or eldar farseers. I know our hq's are cheap and effective, but they really lack in the force multiplier department

Bird lists are getting eaten by shooting lists at the ATC. But all the bird lists I see are being run by people who don't know how to run bird lists. This will lure the meta into a false sense of security so by the time NOVA comes around I'll win with my elite bird unit.

So, can you provide some more specifics on how to correctly run bird lists? A tactica article, even?

Alan pajama pants is running mostly a pure Razorwing flock army on his team for ATC

I am very curious to see how he fares. He is definitely one of the best players around

I played Birds for Team Beast Coast at the ATC, our team came in second overall, and i won all my games and got a final score of 96 (i think) out of 120.  We knew Stormraven spam was going to be a thing and anticipated teams with multiple flyer armies, so we adjusted our bird list to be like this:

Yncarne (warlord, +1 Attack on the charge)
Farseer, witchblade (guide, doom)
3x Beastmasters, agonizers (+2 Ld, then 2 rolls, picking +2 move on the 3rd for relic missions)
6x 12 razorwings
4x 11 razorwings
10 Dark Reapers
Bastion

Something to keep in mind for ATC is that pairings, and how the team does overall, is more important than any specific game.  So sometimes you're cracking heads, and sometimes you take a knee to the groin, depending on what's best for the rest of your team.  

In order, I played:
AM with 6 Valkyries, 12 commanders, 12 plasma command squads (this army is only 2 drops!)
AM with 3 manticores, wyverns, 3 plasma scions, HF chimeras, conscripts, 2 venerable AC dreads
AM with 3 manticores, 30ish mortar teams, LC sentinels, a bunch of rough riders, and a ton of other bodies
SW with 3 Stormwolves, Logan, Arjac, 3x 9 wolfguard all with chainswords and stormbolters and 2 TH per squad
SM with Gman, 6 dreads with twin ACs, 6 razors with twin AssCans and SBs, 50 conscripts and a commissar.
GK with Draigo, 5 Stormravens, 5x 2 acolytes, and a Dread

ATC runs dual missions split into KP/Scouring, Relic/Big Guns, Emperor's Will/4 Objectives, with one being primary worth 8 or 10 depending on how well you do and the other being secondary worth 6, and FB, LB, WL, and Tabling all being worth 1.  On day 2 the mission were the same just with the primary and secondary switched.  I won a major victory in every primary mission, and only lost secondary once when it was KP against the SW stormwolf/wolfguard list (the player later told me i was the only person he didnt table the entire tournament).  I usually got LB, and usually didn't get FB, warlord, or table people.  So my scores were roughly 18, 17, 16, 10, 18, 19.

There's some very cool tricks you can do with the army and soulburst shenanigans.  More than once in turn 5 a flock would die and Yncarne would soulburst advance, then in my turn move, soulburst move, and charge to pick up an easy KP, warlord, or wipe something off an objective.  And a few people were surprised by reapers walking out of the bastion to get guided and soulbursted to double shoot.  Happy to answer any questions about the army or specific games.

Fair warning about flocks, word on the street is that a nerf and/or point increase is heading their way in the near future, so spam them at your own (wallet's) risk.

flocks is one of the ways stopping alpha strike madness, i hope they dont over nerf.... we all knew it tho, im guess 11pts, equaling other swarms

That won't stop the spam, it will just reduce it slightly. In the list above, there would probably just be 73-4 birds instead of 116. It will just mean the guys who bought 150 of the bloody things will sell half of them to another guy and we get two of them guys!

yeah i know that, but GW.... has been know to completely gut things in the past.....

What it needs is a mechanic that allows them to be taken out wholesale in some way. Something like if a mortal wound is suffered they have to take a Toughness test or lose D6 additional wounds. Something that means there's a potential downside to taking them instead of...pretty much any other unit!

I like to see something like, "Instead of Rolling a D3 or a D6 for damage, you dont need to roll for damage, the damage roll is treated as max".

This gives the fell that blast style weapons or high impact ones clears swarms out, and small arms fire doesnt.

That still only kills one bird at a time. Any weapon that causes multiple hits automatically causes the maximum amount possible? Flamers etc would be causing 5+ wounds but in separate wound rolls so the excess rolls over to the next model.